Microsoft makes beta version of Chromium beta available for Windows and macOS

Microsoft is making the official beta version of its Chromium-based Edge browser available today, August 20. The beta channel is open to anyone running Windows 10, 7, 8 / 8.1 and / or macOS and the beta version is immediately available for download from the site. Edge Insider Site.

The beta channel is the third and last "preview" channel for the Chromium Edge database, also unofficially called by some of us observers of Microsoft under the name "Chredge". Microsoft has already made available the Canary channel (updated daily) and Dev (updated weekly) of its new Edge browser. The beta version released today will be updated approximately every six weeks.

Microsoft says that more than 1 million downloads of its Chredge preview versions have been downloaded to all supported platforms since the company began making test releases available in April of this year.

Microsoft still does not give a deadline for the general availability of Chredge, but it is unlikely to happen before the end of this year or by 2020. Once it is deemed ready, it goes into the Stable channel and is added. new Windows 10 feature updates as an in-tray application that can be updated by the store. (It will no longer be linked to Windows 10, so it does not need to be released simultaneously with a new update, such as Windows 10 20H1.) At one point, Chredge – which will simply be called "Edge" like Microsoft's current browser – will replace the original Edge browser.

Microsoft officials say the beta version of Chredge available today is "ready to be used on a daily basis," even though it's not done yet.

Like other preview channels, Chredge Beta supports Edge Insider Addons store extensions or other Chromium-based web stores. Beta users can enable tracking prevention for greater privacy. And the beta supports a number of the previously announced business features for the new Edge device, including the Internet Explorer mode; integration with the new unified version of Microsoft Search (integrated with Bing); and support for Windows Defender Application Guard. (This is the Microsoft Roadmap for Professional Users of Chredge, which was released in July.)

Microsoft continues to support more features of Chredge, starting with Canary and Dev channels. A new tab centered on the company will be "soon" published by Canary and Dev, announced today officials. And the collections will arrive on the Canary Channel today and on the development channel "shortly". Collections is a feature designed to help users to more easily collect, organize, and export information discovered through their browser.

Microsoft officials announced yesterday that the Canary Islands channel will also add an option to stop automatic playback of video and audio on websites; improved scrolling; and a new favorites button on the toolbar. In October, the Chredge Canary channel will register on PDFs and other features requested by users.

In December 2018, Microsoft officials announced that they were reorganizing Edge so that it was built on chrome in order to improve web-based compatibility. Chromium is an open-source browser implementation that is used as a base by a number of browser developers, including Google (with its exclusive Chrome browser), Vivaldi, Opera, Yandex, Brave, and so on. Simultaneously with the release of Chrome in 2008, Google released the bulk of Chrome's code as an open source, giving birth to Chromium.